1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a slide braking apparatus, and more particularly to a simple linking structure provided for users to control the locking or pushing of a slide in a simple, easy and effort-saving manner.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, a traditional cabinet for installing computers and related equipments comes with detachable drawers on different decks of the cabinet and a slide disposed between the drawer and the cabinet for guiding the drawer to slide into or out of the cabinet. The structure of the slide sequentially comprises a bottom rail, a middle rail for sliding on the bottom rail, and an inner rail for sliding on the middle rail, wherein the bottom rail is fixed onto an internal side of the cabinet, and the inner rail is installed on a lateral side of the drawer, and the middle rail and the inner rail slide are coupled on a track, such that the drawer can slide into or out of the cabinet successfully.
Although the foregoing slide structure is convenient to operate and maintain, yet its application is not very safe since the slide structure does not have any braking or stopping device, so that the machine on the drawer may slide into the cabinet due to inertia or slide into the cabinet accidentally during maintenance. As a result, strong forces impact the expensive industrial computer and related machines, or even turn the whole cabinet over by the unstable center of gravity of the cabinet.
To solve the aforementioned problem, manufacturers install a locking device on the slide, so that the slide can be locked at an appropriate position to provide a positioning effect, and control the timing of sliding the drawer. A typical structure was disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,817,685 entitled “Release mechanism for drawer slide latches” as shown in FIG. 1, and the mechanism mainly controls a first element 40 to slide into or out of a second element 50, and the structure installs a door latch 41 and a shifting mechanism 42 for controlling the displacement of the door latch 41 at the first element 40 (which is the aforementioned inner rail). When the first element 40 slides a predetermined distance out of the second element 50, the door latch 41 installed on the first element 40 and coupled to a plate 51 of the second element 50 (which is the aforementioned middle rail), such that the first element 40 is locked onto the second element 50 to provide a position limit effect. If it is necessary to slide the first element 40 into the second element 50, the shifting mechanism 42 is pushed to drive the door latch 41 to retract from the plate 51 of the second element 50, so that the first element 40 is pushed into the second element 50.
Although the aforementioned structure can achieve the braking effect to effectively limit the inner rail of its sliding out of the middle rail, yet the application requires further improvements, since the direction of releasing the braking is in the same direction of sliding the first element 40 into the second element 50 in the prior art structure of the shifting mechanism, such that if a user pushes the shifting mechanism 42 to release the braking, the shifting mechanism 42 will push the first element 40 to slide into the second element 50, and the door latch 41 will get stuck in the plate 51 of the second element 50, and the door latch 41 will not be retracted from the plate 51 easily. Further, a friction is used to provide a link between components. In other words, the user must apply a larger moment of force to push the shifting mechanism to release the brake.
In view of the shortcomings of the prior art, the present invention provides a slide braking apparatus to overcome the shortcomings of the conventional braking structure.